Ask HN: What was the process Theil used to put his PayPal stock in a Roth
I'm curious as to how pay pal stock was put into an Roth IRA at such an early stage. Who hosted the IRA? Was the company public at the time? He set up a self- directed IRA as an investment vehicle and purchased PayPal stock. This was questionable if not outright illegal because it was not an arm's length transaction. Arm's length transactions mean that you don't have a relation to the selling party. If he had invested in a company that he had no relation to it would have been unquestionably legal. As far as I know, this is still a viable tax strategy, but most people will have extreme difficulty finding opportunities to invest in extremely early stage companies and must be accredited investors. This loop is being closed. The legislation would also disallow IRA investments that require owners to be accredited investors.[1] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/13/house-democrats-propose-new-... He put money in before the IPO, bought stock, then put paypal stock under the IRA limit. $2000 of pre-IPO shares costing less than a penny each into $5 billion Thiel should do a HN AMA.